This chapter addresses the implications of self-quantification in its relation to clinical quantification. By self-quantification, I mean those practices of keeping track of aspects of ones life, ...
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This chapter addresses the implications of self-quantification in its relation to clinical quantification. By self-quantification, I mean those practices of keeping track of aspects of ones life, activity, or body. I explore these trends in conversation with more traditional biomedical modes of accounting and quantification, and then turn to the n of 1, a central and practice of Quantified Self (QS). Borrowing from scientific discourse, the n of 1 suggests that knowledge can be gained at the scale of the individual. The n of 1 does different things for different people. Exploring the heterogeneity of n of 1, we can begin to understand how self-quantification entails a complex relationship to biomedical representation, from one that mimics and extends medicine’s gaze to another that undermines. I take the n of 1 as an experimental systemwhere new possibilities for the experience of health and illness ramify in surprising ways-- a paraclinical practice where clinical tools are redefined through their domestication. I consider the poly-vocal nature of the n of 1 and what we might learn from it, as a space to rethink care and the clinical.Less

Deep Data: Notes on the n of 1

Dana Greenfield

Published in print: 2016-05-13

This chapter addresses the implications of self-quantification in its relation to clinical quantification. By self-quantification, I mean those practices of keeping track of aspects of ones life, activity, or body. I explore these trends in conversation with more traditional biomedical modes of accounting and quantification, and then turn to the n of 1, a central and practice of Quantified Self (QS). Borrowing from scientific discourse, the n of 1 suggests that knowledge can be gained at the scale of the individual. The n of 1 does different things for different people. Exploring the heterogeneity of n of 1, we can begin to understand how self-quantification entails a complex relationship to biomedical representation, from one that mimics and extends medicine’s gaze to another that undermines. I take the n of 1 as an experimental systemwhere new possibilities for the experience of health and illness ramify in surprising ways-- a paraclinical practice where clinical tools are redefined through their domestication. I consider the poly-vocal nature of the n of 1 and what we might learn from it, as a space to rethink care and the clinical.